In the manufacture of cigarettes, a double-length cigarette may be formed by positioning a double-length filter plug between the ends of two plain cigarette rods in a flute of a rotary assembly drum and securing the cigarette rods to the filter plug by means of a cigarette tipping paper patch. The patch may have the appearance of cork. The double-length cigarette may then be cut through the filter plug to form two filter tipped cigarettes.
The tipping paper patches are rectangular blanks coated on one side with an adhesive and may be cut from a continuous cigarette paper web at a location upstream of the assembly drum. The rectangular blanks may be cut by a known rotary shear cutting apparatus comprising two rotary drums respectively mounted with a straight edged knife and a straight edged counter knife. The web of cigarette paper is cut through with a shearing action similar to scissors as it is fed between the knife and counter knife during rotation of the rotary carriers. Each cut forms a straight trailing edge of one rectangular blank and the straight leading edge of the following rectangular blank.